Another is the "randomness argument". What is "random",
anyway? We are never told. It says that self organization
cannot occur because the process is "blind" and "random"
that is supposed to drive it. Never mind that the system
has a finite number of states it can occupy and its history
can constrain its future states. This borrows from the
thermodynamic argument the confusion over entropy and open
system states.

The theory of evolution doesn't say it did happen by
chance. This argument completely ignores natural selection.
Please read:

``There was no primordial chaos before the big bang -
not really. Instead, everything was neatly concentrated in
one location. Then it scattered, and is still scattering, a
disorderliness far exceeding the structural order of
galaxies, stars, planets, and life forms which have
appeared in the course of the process.'' [Poul Anderson
"Science & Creation" Analog, Sept 1983]

Ref the information example. It is easy to get VERY
complicated systems containing a tremendous amount of
information starting from very simple, low information
systems. Two methods:

fractal structures - start with a very simple rule and
repeat it over and over and over. The resulting structure
can be (usually is) VERY complicated, but the formation
equations can be very, very simple. And the universe has
had a long time to do so. Example: Look at a
snowflake.

chaos - You can get very, very complicated systems if
you use nonlinearities in the progression. That is why
weather forecasting doesn't work.

Complexity does not imply design. Recursion or
nonlinearity work quite well. And the world is recursive
and very non-linear.

I went and got "Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata" by
Von Neumann. You know that it was done in 1966 before most
of the chaos & fractal work?

As an initial look, I see how this is NOT applicable to
life as Micha tried to do in < 10541@dasys1.UUCP
&gt. Looking at section 5.3.2 "Self-Reproducing
automata" we find that, under his constraints, the
secondary (initially quiescent) automaton is identical to
the parent, except that the constructing automaton is
larger, and in a sense more complex, because the
construction automaton contains the complete plan and a
unit which interprets and executes this plan. This should
NOT apply to biological forms as discussed here
because:

The plan IS the unit that executes itself. In Mary's
term, the life is the language. and, what I consider more
relevant The constructed automaton IS NOT A DUPLICATE of
the constructing automaton. No parent unit that I am aware
of (excluding fission reproduction, in which the parent
unit cannot be identified afterwards) is the child a
duplication of the parent. In every case that I am aware of
the constructed unit is a simpler and much smaller unit,
which grows OF ITSELF into a near-copy of the original.
Since the complexity is added AFTER the reproduction
process, the reproduction process should not be a limiting
factor. Proof: watch almost ANYTHING grow up.

Therefore, while the descent is INITIALLY simpler than
the parent, its final state can be more complex. Therefore,
the argument that information theory proves that life could
not have come from non-life is invalid.

BTW: New systems of cooperating parts have evolved, and
they are not even biological. See "The Evolution of
Cooperation", in particular the computer simulations in
which the routines "decide" ON THEIR OWN that cooperation
is "better".

Not true. The 2nd law of thermodynamics applies only to
closed systems. The Earth is not a closed system.

That if thermo could somehow forbid evolution, then it
would also forbid babies from growing to be adults, and
parents from having children. In fact, we are agents of
entropy: we organize our bodies at the expense of the
organization of our environment, which we digest and
burn.

Creationists often (ab)use the Second Law of
Thermodynamics, apparently not realizing that it explicitly
states, "...in a closed system...". By definition, a closed
system cannot contain anything external to itself. A
Creator who is entirely bounded by His own creation seems
non-sensical, and I can't imagine that many creationists
would accept such a limited God anyway. Thus, God and
Thermodynamics are mutually exclusive; to invoke the Second
Law is to claim that God left!!!!!

A subsequent portion of the outline again invokes
entropy, stating that "all species are degenerating, since
disorder must increase". Ignoring the Theological arguments
for the moment, we reiterate, "...in a CLOSED system...".
Earth is hardly a closed system. To find a LARGE source of
negative entropy, one need only look upward on a clear day.
The sun delivers approximately 1 horse-power per square
meter (sorry for the mixed units, I don't recall the
conversion factor to joules/sec) of free energy to the
biosphere. Likewise, meteors shower us with several tonnes
per day of extra mass, some of it in pre-biotic form - i.e.
complex carbon molecules such as formaldehyde and others.
Larger objects such as comets and Icarus class asteroid
strikes transfer huge amounts of mass, energy, and momentum
to the earth. Orbital perturbations and decay, friction
from the moon's gravity, and radioactive decay, all add to
the total. Sorry, entropy as a disproof of cosmological and
biological evolution simply won't wash. Spread the word.
[It appears that, more recently, the creationists have been
hammered enough with the inapplicability of the Second Law
of Thermodynamics that they have modified it slightly --
the reference is now to a closed universe, not a
closed Earth; the rest of the argument remains essentially
unchanged.]

Creationists say that systems cannot self-organize
because that would violate the second law of
thermodynamics, never mind that such systems are not at
equilibrium and are open systems.

There is always luck. If the mutation does not occur,
you cannot select for it. Evolution is not aimed. That's a
deity's job. Evolution handles the current entity, not some
future not-yet-conceived entity for some not-yet
environment.

Once the preference for one enantiomer over another gets
started in nature, it is relatively easy to see how this
preference is perpetuated. Biological reactions work much
like machines having templates, stamping out the preferred,
and ONLY the preferred configuration generation after
generation after generation.

As to how one became initially started, there are many
possibilities:

Luck. The first one to form just happened to be L, and
then the rest followed.

There may be some effect during formation due to
coriolis force or the (hemisphere dependent) magnetic field
(as lightening went DOWN, the effect may be polarized)

Quantitative calculations indicate that the
fundamentally left-handed neutral-weak force with the
electromagnetic force could introduce an energy preference
(very slight). Aside from any steric preferences, one form
could be energetically more stable than the other.

[William C. McHarris Professor of Chemistry and of
Physics and of Astronomy at Michigan State University
"Handedness in Nature" January 1986 Analog]

Whence the 3,000,000 number, and how is the
"improbability" assigned? Some say inevitable... If 500
developed into man, how would you tell? Besides, given the
way evolution works, one would dominate and 499 would have
(while developing) be suppressed, quite likely into
extinction. The "less successful" are extinct or in
zoos.

First, how do you determine that "numerous coordinated
innovations" are required? That may merely be your
evaluation. For instance, some of the common examples:

poisonous snakes - fangs & poison glands.

A Gila monster has poison glands with no fangs, and
there are snakes with furrowed fangs with no poison
glands.

fish to land animal - legs and lungs.

The mudpuppy is a fish without lungs that goes on the
land, and the ceoclanth (sp) has almost legs with no lungs.
And then there is the African Lungfish, the floridian
walking catfish,...

Coral snakes (southern US) don't have a very
sophisticated delivery system - they also chew on their
victims to deliver the poison. I'm not very familiar with
the anatomy of a coral snake, but it does not have the
usual "fangs" associated in the popular mind with a
poisonous snake - as I recall there is just a small sac or
pore at the base of what look like ordinary reptilian
teeth.

The last time I studied poisonous snakes (some years
ago), it was thought that poison delivery had evolved
several times, independently, in snakes. This was based on
differences in toxins and in delivery systems, as well as
its occurrence in otherwise distantly related snakes, all
of which have closely similar non-poisonous forms. The
delivery systems cover the whole range from the simple,
rather typical, teeth of the coral snake to the elaborate,
retractile, tubular fangs of pit-vipers. Some have slightly
elongate "fangs" with simple grooves on one side, for
instance. Thus, we can see almost the entire range of
intermediate anatomies in evolving fangs purely in
living species. Gap?? What gap? We do not even need
the fossils, which we also have.

And how many of these "numerous coordinated innovations"
can be caused by one change? Check out, for instance, the
effect of changing the age at which bone growth stops in
human beings.

This needs to be elaborated. If a genome is being
stressed to some metastable level where its states can
multiply, then rapid changes to more than one structure in
the organism can occur simultaneously.

As far as the brain obeying certain chaotic processes,
the brain is too structured and controlled to allow
anything like that to occur. Biological processes are very
closely controlled in the body and in the brain. That is
necessary for survival. Reflexes are something the brain
cannot control. Your heart beats regularly and you breathe
in your sleep. Your brain releases hormones at just the
right moment to allow you to run away from a lion, or, when
cornered, fight off an attacker with more strength than you
thought you had. When you consider the mind as it is
usually defined (the thinking, conscious part of the
brain), it must also function properly at all times, or you
would not be able to survive. Evolutionary pressures would
not favor a mind which works on a process based on chaos
theory.

The connection of chaos with complex real living systems is
circumstantial, but suggestive. I do not have a firm
demonstration that full-blown living processes are
adequately described by systems of nonlinear differential
equations. Two examples I have heard about, I do not have
references, are human brain waves can be modeled with a
strange attractor, and a good model of cardiac electrical
function and sudden failure has been built using chaos.

Huh? If by "development" he means adaption to the
environment I have no idea what "increasing organization
and complexity" is fundamental for. And maybe by
"deterioration" he means "entrophy or enthalpy"?

This is easy. Are you familiar with a small creature
called a "Volvox"? This is a small spherical animal that
lives in the water and is made up of individual cells of
algae.

Separate algae cells have been observed organizing into
a Volvox, with the advantage of being able to propel itself
in a way similar to an octopus, and capture food inside the
sphere. The algae cells operate in a unified manner, just
as the cells in a larger organism do.

Here is a clear example of increased complexity for the
sake of survival. Since mutation is factual (i.e. we have
observed mutation, so it is not conjecture), why do you
find it so hard to believe that increasingly complex
organizations of cells, combined with favorable mutations,
can result in a higher form of life?

I have a biological example. The cat in my house has a
pair of extra toes growing inward on both of its forepaws.
This is not unknown, and I have seen it before. Even more
interesting, I have seen the cat use those extra toes as a
human would use a thumb to grip small objects, such as a
penny, in a manner that a cat with ordinary forepaws could
not. A new part, adapted from an old part that all others
of the species has. A new ability that others of the
species doesn't have. An increase in complexity in a
biological context.

There are a LOT of complex chemicals of extraterrestrial
origins composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and I think
even a bit of sulfur. And the Viking has found some odd
reactions. And if you don't mind taking environmental
conditions more alien than mars as "elsewhere", I have seen
some dandy pictures of things that sure look like life in
eternal blackness, no oxygen, hotter than a pot of boiling
water,...

To the creationists. And it does explain how to study
the unknown, rather than bowing out.

All of my statements, past, present and
future express solely my opinions and/or beliefs and do not
in any way represent those of any of my employer's unless
such is specifically stated in the content of the text.